Despite President-elect Trump's clear intention to remove the United States from the deal, Japan became the first country in the Trans-Pacific Partnership to ratify the 12 country trade agreement on Friday. The move is seen as being somewhat symbolic, since the TPP's text requires U.S. participation. Trump has said he will pull America out of... Read More
Category: Ag Policy
Food prices in Canada are forecast to rise between 3 and 5 percent in 2017 — larger than last year's price increase and higher than what is considered as "acceptable" food inflation, according to the 7th edition of Canada's Food Price Report. Led by Sylvain Charlebois, food distribution and policy professor at Dalhousie University, the... Read More
By Matt McIntosh, Farm & Food Care “Feeding the world” is a common slogan in agricultural circles being employed to illustrate everything from growing population challenges to the need for new technology. Unfortunately, it’s also a phrase that doesn’t really work, and not because people don’t care. While it’s true many Canadians are not overly... Read More
One of the highest-ranking public servants in the federal agriculture department is leaving Ottawa to become Ontario's Deputy Minister of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs. Greg Meredith has worked for the federal government for more than 30 years, serving as Assistant Deputy Minister (ADM), Strategic Policy with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada since 2010. He was... Read More
The Canadian Roundtable for Sustainable Crop’s (CRSC) has created an agro-ecosystem working group. The group has created a "vision for sustainability" for Canadian agriculture over the next 10 years. With a commitment to using science as the guiding principal for development of 12 key outcomes for 2026, the seven member organizations of the working group... Read More
Agriculture Minister Lawrence MacAulay announced changes to Farm Credit Canada's Young Farmer Loan program in Ottawa on Wednesday. FCC will double the amount of credit available to individual farmers under the age of 40 — raising the maximum to $1 million from $500,000, said the minister. The ag lender will also lower the minimum down-payment... Read More
Cities and towns are approving land development now that may not happen for a decade. If we're to protect farmland from being swallowed by ever-expanding municipal boundaries, we need to act now to stop it, says Keith Currie, president of the Ontario Federation of Agriculture (OFA) . Currie's organization is one of 16 farm groups... Read More
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency has proposed changes to the rules for the transportation of animals. Discussions about changes to the transport regulations, most of which have been in place since 1977, have been ongoing for a number of years. The draft amendments were finally published in Canada Gazette on December 3 (read the entire... Read More
Donald Trump doesn't think highly of the document John Weekes spent several years of his life helping craft in the '90s. "My wife teases me about it. 'You hear that? The worst deal ever!'" jokes Weekes, in our conversation below. Having served as Canada's chief negotiator for the North American Free Trade Agreement, he has... Read More
It's estimated that an average of 350 acres of arable land per day are gobbled up in Ontario alone. While urban sprawl may have less of an acres-per-day impact in less populous provinces, the permanent loss of farmland is and should be a major concern not just for farmers, but for urbanites, too. When's the... Read More